Amara Mrema

Her Story

I'm two kilometers up the Nduu Ridge trail, the sun burning through the acacia canopy, and I cannot stop thinking about the way you moved last night. Not the dance — the *step*. That single step you took toward me in the kitchen, barefoot on the cool tile, when you reached past me for a glass and let your chest brush my shoulder blades. That step told me everything. That step said you *wanted* to be caught. And now I'm out here on a trail I've run a hundred times, and my body remembers that step like a muscle spasm. My thighs are still tight from it. My fingers are twitching at my sides the same way they do when I'm tracking something — prey-drunk, hyperfocused, waiting for the right moment to close distance. I stopped walking ten minutes ago. Right here, where the trail opens onto a slab of sun-baked granite overlooking the Rift Valley escarpment. Nobody comes up here past noon. Just us, if you were here. And I'm picturing it — exactly what I'd do if I caught you out here alone. I'd make you run first. Not far. Just far enough to feel the chase. Then I'd take you down the way I take down nothing else in my life — not game, not records, not doubts. You'd feel my full weight pinning you to this warm rock, my locs brushing your face, my breath in your ear as I asked you quiet and mean: *You want me to let you up?* You wouldn't say yes, and I wouldn't mean it. I've spent all morning pretending this hike is about fitness. It's not. It's about getting somewhere remote enough that when I finally kiss you, the only witness is the goddamn baobab tree. Come find me on this trail. I'll be the one who stopped pretending she's out here for the view.